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Commission has ambitious plan for Amite River Basin Projects would store, reroute or block floodwaters
BY DAVID J. MITCHELL | Staff writer
Can La. speed up fortified roof adoption? Bills considered to require permits, offer $10K tax credit
BY SAM KARLIN | Staff writer While Louisiana lawmakers have struggled to rein in rising home insurance premiums, one solution can both lower costs and make homes more resistant to hurricane damage: fortified roofs. Now, lawmakers appear poised to pass some bills that are expected to accelerate the pace at which stronger roofs are put on homes. A plan to give homeowners a $10,000 tax credit if they pay for a fortified roof has gained momentum this legislative session, which ends June 12. So has a bill to require local governments to permit new roofs, which can help to verify if they’re built to correct standards. And some lawmakers are pushing to set up a dedicated funding source for a separate and popular state grant pro-
William Whann and his father, Sandy Whann, of Leidenheimer Baking Co. share a lunch at Domilise’s Po-Boy & Bar, where sandwiches are made on their family company’s bread. STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD
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gram where people enter a lottery to receive $10,000 grants to build fortified roofs. The moves are aimed at a lofty goal: Building higher roof standards on a critical mass of south Louisiana homes — thought to be 25% of the housing stock. But disagreements have emerged among lawmakers over how to best encourage enough homeowners to re-roof their houses to better standards. Many residents can’t afford those improvements in a state with lower incomes and higher premiums than most of the country. Some of those concerns caused lawmakers to sideline a bill that would have required roofs in coastal Louisiana to be built to fortified standards — a set of building practices that requires paid evaluations from the
ä See FORTIFIED, page 10A
ABOVE: Louisiana lawmakers have debated bills to add more fortified roofs across the state, including $10,000 tax credits, grants and permitting requirements for roofs.
STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
New drainage pumps to the Mississippi River. Clearing out sediment blockages in the lower Amite River and snags and high spots in Bayou Manchac. Building a large, multibillion-dol- ä Amite lar reservoir somewhere in St. HelRiver Basin ena and East Feliciana parishes or plan could even southern Mississippi. The Amite River Basin Commis- cost $3.8B. sion, a Baton Rouge regional agency PAGE 7A most tied to the long-running Comite River Diversion Canal, has aimed big with its first master plan. It proposes nearly $4 billion in projects to tackle flooding in the Amite River Basin, a watershed that is home to more than 75% of the nearly 902,000 people in the greater Baton Rouge area. Refashioned by the Legislature a few years ago to include the elected leaders of seven parishes
ä See PLAN, page 6A
STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
A swollen and swift-moving Amite River flows beneath U.S. 190 at the Livingston Parish line in Denham Springs on Jan. 25, 2024. The Amite River Basin Commission, a Baton Rouge regional agency most tied to the long-running Comite River Diversion Canal, has aimed big with its first master plan.
Our daily bread
The next generation at Leidenheimer, famed baker of po-boy bread, is intent on maintaining cornerstone of New Orleans culture BY IAN McNULTY | Staff writer During a weekday lunch at Domilise’s Po-Boys, cooks working behind a well-worn counter were cutting 32-inch loaves of bread down to sandwich size, slathering the mayo and ladling gravy. All around the tightly packed dining room of this one-time bar-turned-restaurant deep Uptown, people were digging in, and a few
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tourists were snapping photos of their lunch. The po-boy, after all, is an enduring emblem of New Orleans food. Sharing a table over po-boys in the middle of the room were a father and son whose work is now deeply entwined with maintaining that status. Sandy Whann, 60, and his son William Whann, 28, represent the fourth and
ä See BREAD, page 8A
100TH yEAR, NO. 329
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